MKMVA denounces the removal of Comrade Olly Mlamleli as Executive Mayor of the Mangaung Metropolitan Council, and calls for swift disciplinary action against all sell-out and betrayers
9 August 2020
The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) is disappointed and angered by the continuing tendency of some African National Congress (ANC) deployees to make common cause with opposition parties, and connive with them to pass motions of no-confidence against ANC leaders. The most recent example occurred when some traitors within the ANC Caucus in the Mangaung Metropolitan Council voted with opposition parties to remove comrade Olly Mlamleli as the Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metropolitan Council.
MKMVA agrees with the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL), who in their media statement in protest to the removal of comrade Mlamleli, pointed out that to collaborate with counter-revolutionary forces and opposition parties in order to undermine the ANC, and the deployed leaders of the ANC, is in terms of the ANC Constitution a very serious offense. Those wedge-drivers who make themselves guilty of such behavior should be disciplined and expelled from the ANC.
MKMVA notes that the ANCWL in their media statement calls such despicable conduct a ‘foreign tendency’, and we agree that in terms of the proud liberation history of the ANC and our ANC Constitution - as well as the principle of democratic centralism - such acts of betrayal should be foreign to the ANC. However, sadly, in recent years this has not been the case.
The rot had set in some time ago, and manifested itself when more than 30 ANC Members of Parliament (MP’s) voted in the National Parliament in support of a no-confidence motion by opposition parties to remove President Zuma. This act of wanton betrayal by some of our ANC members, deployed as MP’s, against an incumbent President of the ANC and of the Republic of South Africa, happened on the 8th of August 2017, exactly three years ago.
At the time when this treacherous act of ill-disciplined betrayal happened MKMVA called for immediate disciplinary action against all of those ANC MP’s who voted with the opposition parties. Similarly to what the ANCWL points out now with regards to the betrayal of ANC councilors in the Mangaung Caucus, MKMVA then already pointed out that such behavior is in blatant contravention of our ANC Constitution. MKMVA furthermore warned senior leaders of the ANC, some of them even members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC, that their conduct to collaborate with opposition parties and endorse a secret ballot for the no-confidence vote against President Zuma was tantamount to them being enablers of ill-disciplined betrayers, and the deliberate undermining of their own party, the African National Congress.
Our warnings were ignored, because those who wanted the non-confidence vote to succeed against their own ANC President were blinded by their irrational hatred for President Zuma. They persisted in collaborating with opposition parties, and cowardly tried to cover up their shameless betrayal under the cloak of a secret ballot, so that no-one would be able to identify them carrying out their despicable treacherous act. Fortunately they did not succeed to hide, and soon after that unsuccessful no-confidence vote it was known who the Judas-like betrayers in the ANC Caucus were, who voted against President Zuma. At the time MKMVA called for those betrayers to be charged in terms of the ANC Constitution, and to be expelled from the ANC. We warned that if this did not happen the disciplinary foundation of the ANC will crumble, and we will face a situation where all ANC deployees leading National Government, Provinces and Local Government are in danger to be removed by sell-outs.
Sadly our well-meant warnings were not heeded, no disciplinary action whatsoever were taken, and in fact some of the sell-out betrayers were rewarded for their treacherous ill-discipline by having been promoted to senior executive positions.
MKMVA remains of the opinion that those sell-out betrayers, whose names are known, should still be charged and expelled from the ANC in terms of the ANC Constitution. Our memories are long, and we will not forget nor forgive their betrayal. We will certainly not rest until they are eventually dealt with and disciplined. This is the only way that unity in our beloved ANC can be protected, and the enforcement and dignity of our ANC Constitution can be restored and upheld.
The same disciplinary action should definitely also be instituted against those ANC councilors in the ANC Caucus in the Mangaung Metropolitan Council, who have now, similarly, betrayed the ANC by having voted with opposition parties. It is noted that this kind of treacherous behavior is increasingly becoming common, because it also happened when ANC councilors in the Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality of the Dr. J. S. Moroka Local Municipality connived with opposition parties to oust ANC deployees.
MKMVA denounced the arrogance with which Mr. Derek Hanekom flaunted that he connived with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to vote with them against President Zuma in the no-confidence vote. At the time we noted with disgust that Mr. Hanekom was arrogantly proud of his treacherous behavior, and we issued a media statement calling for his immediate suspension from the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC, and that he should be charged with having contravened the Constitution of the ANC, and expelled from the ANC. (See: MKMVA DEMANDS THAT MR. DEREK HANEKOM MUST FORTHWITH BE EXPELLED FROM THE ANC, AND SAYS HE MUST GO IMMEDIATELY - Date: Thursday, 25 July 2019).
MKMVA is appalled that once again a blind eye was turned, and that Mr. Hanekom continues to be a member of the NEC of the ANC. It is because our ANC Constitution is not upheld, and implemented, that acts of wanton betrayal, such as what now happened at the Mangaung Metropolitan Council and the Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality, continue to happen.
We do not find any pleasure in being able to say: We told you so! However, once again MKMVA warns today that more and more of these ill-disciplined betrayals will follow, until it becomes an avalanche of betrayal and ill-discipline, that will engulf us all and destroy the ANC.
MKMVA furthermore notes with trepidation that there are even more serious allegations that senior members of the ANC were involved in having paid bribes to ANC councilors in Mangaung to either support the opposition’s no-confidence vote, deliberately spoil their ballots, or abstain from voting (a combination of all three, which all are in direct contravention of our ANC Constitution). If these allegations are true it is a very serious matter indeed, especially in the context of the growing number of allegations that continue to persist that huge amounts of money were used to influence the outcome of the leadership elections at the 54th National Conference of the ANC in 2017.
MKMVA is on record to have called for a thorough investigation by the NEC of the ANC to determine the veracity of these serious allegations, and to take urgent and decisive action if they are found to be true. In this regard MKMVA also publicly endorsed the call that comrade Lindiwe Sisulu made for such an investigation.
To our minds the fact that such an investigation has not yet been launched by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC is cause for serious concern. The further allegations of vote influencing, and vote buying, in the Mangaung no-confidence vote now make it even more serious and urgent for a full -scale, and thorough, NEC investigation (or investigations) to be instituted immediately into all of these allegations.
It is must be stated categorically: VOTE BUYING IS A TRAVESTY. IT IS ALIEN TO THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE ANC, AND MUST BE ROOTED OUT AT ALL AND EVERY COST.
The ANC needs to bring sanity within our ranks. Otherwise we will die a slow painful political death. Millions of South Africans have voted for the ANC in the trust that we in the ANC will be true to our proud history and revolutionary commitments. We cannot betray their trust by turning the ANC into an auction-floor where the highest bidder can vulgarize their votes, and destroy their futures. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! This must come to an end right now. MKMVA will certainly not stand idly by and allow our beloved Liberation Movement, and all that we sacrificed and fought for, being trashed by rent-lords and sell-outs.
On this National Women’s Day MKMVA concurs with the ANCWL that the far too easy manner that women deployees are removed in government is certainly “not an act of nature, but the result of the entrenched patriarchal system in the politics of the ANC and our country in general”. MKMVA supports the call by the ANCWL to defeat all sexists within, and outside, the ANC structures. We furthermore agree that the number of women elected into leadership positions within the ANC should reflect the longstanding demographic reality that the majority of members of the ANC are indeed women.
MKMVA endorses the call by the ANCWL that comrade Olly Mlamleli must immediately be reinstated in her position as Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metropolitan Council, and that those ANC councilors who are responsible for her removal should immediately be charged, and disciplined for their betrayal and flagrant contravention of the ANC Constitution. Any attempt to elect a different mayor should be resisted, because this will be tantamount to the sanctioning of ill-discipline and thuggish betrayal.
MKMVA furthermore insists that those ANC members - no matter their seniority within the ANC - who have in the past made themselves guilty of similar conduct, as well as those who may be found to have indulged in vote buying, should be charged and swift disciplinary action must be taken against them. This is truly the only way that we will be able to save our beloved ANC from the treacherous vultures that are now trying to destroy us from inside our own organizational structures.
Issued by Carl Niehaus, NEC Member of MKMVA and National Spokesperson, 9 August 2020
